E.R. RAMACHANDRAN writes: Ajji was poring over Praja Vani as if she was doing research in classical physics. She was reading it word by word, with a lens in hand.

Had she worn a white coat and if one counted the lines on her forehead, she would have looked more like Marie Curie working on radioactive substances.

I was clearly impressed by her diligence. The editor of Praja Vani too would have been impressed.

“Ajji! It looks like you are doing a PhD thesis. Not bad for a woman of your age!”

Ignoring my comments, keeping the lens aside, she started off.

“Alvo, our children, I mean the students, are beaten black and blue in Australia, aren’t they?”

“Yes, Ajji, beaten to pulp day in day out.”

“They are beating our boys because they are foreigners in Melbourne?” she queried.

“Absolutely.”

“We feel Australia is doing nothing about it. And that is why our “Maddur” Krishna and the government are sore at the Australian government’s attitude. Alva?”

Ajji was as analytical as Euclid when he addressed the Greek mathematicians to provide additional proof for Pythogoras‘ right-angled triangle theorem.

“Howdu ajji,” I said.

“If that is so, why are we not doing anything in Goa when foreigners, girls from Russia and England are raped and killed regularly, over the last two years?”

“But Ajji,” I tried to interrupt.

“In what way are events happening in Goa different from what is happening in Australia? The Russian and British governments have protested. Yet we have done nothing about it.”

Ajji’s analysis was sharp and incisive, like Abhimanyu Mithun’s bowling; pitching at a good-length spot on the middle stump, and catching the batsman plumb in front of the stumps.

“It’s true Ajji. There is some similarity. We should have asked the Goa government to act or made sure Goa was not fast turning out a seedy place with drugs, mafia, rape and killing.”

Ajji was not finished yet; she was going to the bowling mark once again.

She gulped some tulasi leaves with warm water for her cold.

“IPL bosses have not selected Pakistan cricketers for IPL 3, right?”

“That’s right.”

“And our film stars say that it is no way to treat cricketers from Pakistan. Shah Rukh Khan says it is insulting to the cricketers?”

“Yes, ajji.”

“What prevented him from being present in the auction and buying the whole lot of Pakistan players?” she demanded.

“Yes, Ajji. He had the money to buy at least a few players. I don’t know why he didn’t do that.”

And Aamir Khan says the boundary between countries is fictitious. It is just a line dividing people.”

“Yes.”

“Try saying that to the families who lost their near and dear ones in hotels, railway stations and markets, shot by or blown to bits by militants coming from Pakistan who were given instructions on-the-spot step-by-step procedures by agencies within their country. Try saying that to families of Kumara Sangakkara,Chaminda Vas and Tillakarathne Dilshan who escaped death by the skin of their teeth.”